Redistricting 2020, doomed incumbents

[Idaho Conservative]

The Indiana GOP would be stupid to try and destroy the Marion County or Lake County districts.

For all the talk about gerrymanders, Rokita when he was Secretary of State and drew the districts made them really common sensical drawn districts when you look at a map. The number of counties split is incredibly minimal, which if you're an anti-gerrymandering individual, is a good measure to have. My district the 3rd has 2 split counties for the whole district. I know the Democrat that lost in the 3rd (NE Indiana - includes the whole of Fort Wayne) in 2018 said in her defeat speech "always going to be difficult with gerrymandered districts", my response was "take a look at the red counties on the border of this district, from where were you going to get votes to take you from 35% to 50%?

The 2 districts at current that are Republican-held but are challenge-able for the Democrats are the 2nd district of Jackie Walorski (South Bend-based) and the 5th of Hamilton County (open race in 2020).

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/indiana/#MajMin
They would draw a map like this if they were smart. 

[Idaho Conservative]

I'm going to cover most of these when we hit their turn on the state  megathread but here  my hotlist. I'm not going to count anyone who is sitting in a opposing seat like Brindisi since getting redistricting from red to red or blue to blue doesn't count as getting drawn out. Right now those with near-guaranteed ticking timers are:

- Jim Cooper (TN05) is the most vulnerable incumbent in Congress to the pen. R's didn't crack him back in 2010 cause they feared a dixiecrat revival...which never came. I did the  math on a personal map and even with Bresden's numbers there are ways that a Quad-cut gets all seats to Blackburn+10. A 5-way cut is also possible if nobody want too much of Nashville, while not compromising the protection for the Knoxville seats. Something similar would be happening in KY03 if Beshear didn't get elected last week, and can court-block the most outrageous proposals.

- Someones going down in VA, likely Rob Whitman (VA01) if dems have the cahones.

- One of the Dem's from the north jersey suburbs. There needs to be a second R seat up there to make everyone else safe, if NJ-07 flips in 2020 then the decision process gets easier. If some gets the ax congressionally they get a free ticket statewide.

- John Katko (NY24) if he survives 2020. He's facing Brindisi if Brindisi survives because NY22 is a guaranteed reapportionment, and Syracuse likely gets custody of Ithaca.

- IN01 (Open) if the GOP is feeling cocky. Similarly, MO05 (Emmanuel Cleaver). Both might survive because their remote location on the  map demands a major reshuffling of district lines. If/When MO05 gets cut it probably triggers ballot petitions for fair districts, and starts a process similar to what we saw in FL in 2016.

-IL12/13 are getting merged and one redistributed, but the reps may survive by getting stuck in other seats and having to primary other GOP'ers.

-Alex Mooney (WV02) is dead weight, always underpreforming his baseline massively. He's the easy GOP cut, especially now that WV03 seems a lock for the future.

- Someone loses the DvD primary in RI, unless they get to go statewide.

-AL02 (Open).

- Sanford Bishop (GA02) if the GOP increases AA power overall using ATL, even while making the 2nd red. They also need cleaver lawyers, because its the VRA.

-Inside California, someone from LA is losing their seat to redistribution to the OC/SD region. The new seat still will be blue though because of which areas are growing.

Someones losing their seat in MN, MI, PA, Long Island, and OH because reapportionment. But which seat is cut is a open question. Ohio is general is a black box this cycle.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/345f09d8-6559-4bf9-8705-3b570ddc4546
a good georgia map. 4 aa districts.

[Idaho Conservative]

I'm going to cover most of these when we hit their turn on the state  megathread but here  my hotlist. I'm not going to count anyone who is sitting in a opposing seat like Brindisi since getting redistricting from red to red or blue to blue doesn't count as getting drawn out. Right now those with near-guaranteed ticking timers are:

- Jim Cooper (TN05) is the most vulnerable incumbent in Congress to the pen. R's didn't crack him back in 2010 cause they feared a dixiecrat revival...which never came. I did the  math on a personal map and even with Bresden's numbers there are ways that a Quad-cut gets all seats to Blackburn+10. A 5-way cut is also possible if nobody want too much of Nashville, while not compromising the protection for the Knoxville seats. Something similar would be happening in KY03 if Beshear didn't get elected last week, and can court-block the most outrageous proposals.

- Someones going down in VA, likely Rob Whitman (VA01) if dems have the cahones.

- One of the Dem's from the north jersey suburbs. There needs to be a second R seat up there to make everyone else safe, if NJ-07 flips in 2020 then the decision process gets easier. If some gets the ax congressionally they get a free ticket statewide.

- John Katko (NY24) if he survives 2020. He's facing Brindisi if Brindisi survives because NY22 is a guaranteed reapportionment, and Syracuse likely gets custody of Ithaca.

- IN01 (Open) if the GOP is feeling cocky. Similarly, MO05 (Emmanuel Cleaver). Both might survive because their remote location on the  map demands a major reshuffling of district lines. If/When MO05 gets cut it probably triggers ballot petitions for fair districts, and starts a process similar to what we saw in FL in 2016.

-IL12/13 are getting merged and one redistributed, but the reps may survive by getting stuck in other seats and having to primary other GOP'ers.

-Alex Mooney (WV02) is dead weight, always underpreforming his baseline massively. He's the easy GOP cut, especially now that WV03 seems a lock for the future.

- Someone loses the DvD primary in RI, unless they get to go statewide.

-AL02 (Open).

- Sanford Bishop (GA02) if the GOP increases AA power overall using ATL, even while making the 2nd red. They also need cleaver lawyers, because its the VRA.

-Inside California, someone from LA is losing their seat to redistribution to the OC/SD region. The new seat still will be blue though because of which areas are growing.

Someones losing their seat in MN, MI, PA, Long Island, and OH because reapportionment. But which seat is cut is a open question. Ohio is general is a black box this cycle.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/345f09d8-6559-4bf9-8705-3b570ddc4546
a good georgia map. 4 aa districts.

No, dumb and illegal map. You won't be able to get away with killing off the black belt district, the best scenario is to have 3 AA Atlanta districts, 1 AA Black Belt district, and 10 Safe R districts elsewhere.

lmao, illegal?  My map has 4 aa districts, doesn't matter that it is now in Atlanta instead of southern GA.  Also, Bishop's district isn't even vra protected, but I drew the 4th aa district in case it gets ruled GA needs a 4th district that is majority-minority. 

[Idaho Conservative]

We talked about this in the Georgia thread, but here is the situation. I don't think we have ever seen Redistricting mappers destroy an AA opportunity/VRA seat at any level when the state was gaining AA pop, unless it was ordered by a court. Republicans in the past loved AA seats since they packed in Dem votes, and Dems are always happy to appease their coalition, though their AA seats are not as pack-y as the Republicans ones. Therefore, Georgia would stick out, and not in a good way. Cutting GA02 and trying for 11-3 would not just end up as a dummymander, it would likely be quickly invalidated by the courts. However, they really want to get rid of GA02: the rural parts of the belt are losing AA pop, the seat was not 50% AA to begin with, Bishop seems unlikely to continue serving in Congress after 2022 (health hopefully, but he may die unfortunately), and the surrounding districts are all blood red. The only way the GOP could potentially survive the case that will come if GA02 is cut up is if they improve AA opportunity in another part of the map. This would ideally be a 4th performing VRA seat in Atlanta.

Therefore, GA indirectly will have 4 AA seats at minimum in 2022. Cutting GA02 is suicidal unless it is replaced with a additional seat. Therefore GA will always have the three Atlanta AA seats, and either the belt or the 4th Atlanta seat. This also is not factoring in the possibility of a 5th Atlanta seat, likely a mixed opportunity seat somewhere in Gwinnett or a belt-to-atlanta AA seat. Such a seat would both improve the maps ability to survive the courts, and improve the odds of surviving a decade of democratic growth into the city and suburbs. The odds of that seat emerging likely depend upon how blue the GA elections are in 2020.

then my map should hold up in court then.

[Idaho Conservative]

I'm going to cover most of these when we hit their turn on the state  megathread but here  my hotlist. I'm not going to count anyone who is sitting in a opposing seat like Brindisi since getting redistricting from red to red or blue to blue doesn't count as getting drawn out. Right now those with near-guaranteed ticking timers are:

- Jim Cooper (TN05) is the most vulnerable incumbent in Congress to the pen. R's didn't crack him back in 2010 cause they feared a dixiecrat revival...which never came. I did the  math on a personal map and even with Bresden's numbers there are ways that a Quad-cut gets all seats to Blackburn+10. A 5-way cut is also possible if nobody want too much of Nashville, while not compromising the protection for the Knoxville seats. Something similar would be happening in KY03 if Beshear didn't get elected last week, and can court-block the most outrageous proposals.

- Someones going down in VA, likely Rob Whitman (VA01) if dems have the cahones.

- One of the Dem's from the north jersey suburbs. There needs to be a second R seat up there to make everyone else safe, if NJ-07 flips in 2020 then the decision process gets easier. If some gets the ax congressionally they get a free ticket statewide.

- John Katko (NY24) if he survives 2020. He's facing Brindisi if Brindisi survives because NY22 is a guaranteed reapportionment, and Syracuse likely gets custody of Ithaca.

- IN01 (Open) if the GOP is feeling cocky. Similarly, MO05 (Emmanuel Cleaver). Both might survive because their remote location on the  map demands a major reshuffling of district lines. If/When MO05 gets cut it probably triggers ballot petitions for fair districts, and starts a process similar to what we saw in FL in 2016.

-IL12/13 are getting merged and one redistributed, but the reps may survive by getting stuck in other seats and having to primary other GOP'ers.

-Alex Mooney (WV02) is dead weight, always underpreforming his baseline massively. He's the easy GOP cut, especially now that WV03 seems a lock for the future.

- Someone loses the DvD primary in RI, unless they get to go statewide.

-AL02 (Open).

- Sanford Bishop (GA02) if the GOP increases AA power overall using ATL, even while making the 2nd red. They also need cleaver lawyers, because its the VRA.

-Inside California, someone from LA is losing their seat to redistribution to the OC/SD region. The new seat still will be blue though because of which areas are growing.

Someones losing their seat in MN, MI, PA, Long Island, and OH because reapportionment. But which seat is cut is a open question. Ohio is general is a black box this cycle.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/345f09d8-6559-4bf9-8705-3b570ddc4546
a good georgia map. 4 aa districts.

No, dumb and illegal map. You won't be able to get away with killing off the black belt district, the best scenario is to have 3 AA Atlanta districts, 1 AA Black Belt district, and 10 Safe R districts elsewhere.

lmao, illegal?  My map has 4 aa districts, doesn't matter that it is now in Atlanta instead of southern GA.  Also, Bishop's district isn't even vra protected, but I drew the 4th aa district in case it gets ruled GA needs a 4th district that is majority-minority.  

You don’t think splitting up the Black Belt would invite legal challenges?

Anyway, Republicans were the ones that wanted GA-02 to be a black belt district in the first place in 1992.

it would only invite legal challenges if it's not replaced, my map replaced it.

[Idaho Conservative]

I personally think that the senate is going blue here (the map favors team Blue) but if it doesn't then we will cross the less likely bridge when we come to it. I got three Dem drawn styles of map here, and the overall result is 5 Clinton seats on both the 8 District and the 7 District map. It's really not hard, even if you avoid cutting towns like I did here since MN historically doesn't like cutting towns.

Here's a map whose theme is 'aggression.' The Northern tentacles really are not bad, they even maintain a COI; the native reservations. The southern tentacles are more notable. This map tries to get every blue bit inside a blue seat, and it shows. I don't think this map is very likely.



1: 62.6/29/7 Trump, R+13.5 CPVI
2: 47.5/43.1 Clinton, D+2.2
3: 53.2/37.7 Clinton, D+4.2
4: 56.3/37.5 Clinton, D+9.9
5: 61.7/29.6 Clinton, D+15.3
6: 62.5/29.4 Trump, R+15.7
7: 46.6/44.8 Clinton, D+3.1

Here's a 7 district map that tries to better respect COI's in certain cases. It at least is less ugly in regards to MN02 and MN07. I find this map rather interesting because bit shows three different types of D+2 seats. A reservation tentacle remains for MN07.



1: 60.8/3.7 Trump, R+12.9
2: 49.2/41.4 Clinton, D+2.6
3: 50.9/40 Clinton, D+2.3
4: 54.1/37 Clinton, D+8.4
5: 62.2/29.3 Clinton, D+16
6: 62.4/30.2 Trump R+13.1
7: 47/44.3 Clinton D+2.4

Finally, here's a map where Minnesota keeps her 8th seat. Keeping the 8th seat allows the Blue seats to become safer. This map also sees a big reorientation of the three GOP seats to satisfy the democratic mappers. This map probably has 4 safe blue seats.



1: 50.4/40.2 Clinton, D+3.7 CPVI
2: 55.2/36.7 Trump, R+7.7
3: 55/36.1 Clinton, D+5.9
4: 55.1/36 Clinton, D+8.7
5: 65.5/25.7 Clinton, D+18.9
6: 62.5/29.6 Trump, R+14.4
7: 61.3/31.8 Trump, R+12.8
8: 47.5/43.9 Clinton, D+3.1

The theme of any MN Blue gerrymander is pairing each of the twin cities with as much exurbs as one can without making it vulnerable.

Huge dummymander risk, dems still over-perform in rural mn down-ballot, these maps evaporate that remaining support.  Dems would be wise to draw a 4d-3r map, with 2 of the r districts being rural districts that dems have been able to win in the past decade.  Dems would be smart to give Phillips some of Minneapolis and Craig some of Stp to shore them up, but a visually wird gerrymander into rural mn would garner huge backlash, and risks dummymander in a state which has trended r.   

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ee1bb222-5386-4292-97cd-f56cf4ece4c5
here's a more likely MN map.  I wouldn't support this, but all 4 dem seats have double digit Clinton margins and only 1 seat would've stayed red the entire last decade.  If dems run candidates more appealing to rural voters, they could win 6/7 of the seats. 

[Idaho Conservative]

No way legislature would have the Twin Cities suburbs (Washington county) connected to the Iron Range. You have to at least try to keep COI together,

Washington county already borders the 8th, this isn't some huge gerrymander here. The north range didn't have enough pop on it's own, it had to reach into the exurbs in 2010. The other option was disrupting Peterson's base, which wasn't an really a option. If the north gets even more red in 2020, they will have no option but to pair the two: Dems won't sink Duluth into a red seat, bit there is nothing more favorable left in the north.

Also:

I personally think that the senate is going blue here (the map favors team Blue) but if it doesn't then we will cross the less likely bridge when we come to it. I got three Dem drawn styles of map here, and the overall result is 5 Clinton seats on both the 8 District and the 7 District map. It's really not hard, even if you avoid cutting towns like I did here since MN historically doesn't like cutting towns.

Here's a map whose theme is 'aggression.' The Northern tentacles really are not bad, they even maintain a COI; the native reservations. The southern tentacles are more notable. This map tries to get every blue bit inside a blue seat, and it shows. I don't think this map is very likely.

Here's a 7 district map that tries to better respect COI's in certain cases. It at least is less ugly in regards to MN02 and MN07. I find this map rather interesting because bit shows three different types of D+2 seats. A reservation tentacle remains for MN07.



Finally, here's a map where Minnesota keeps her 8th seat. Keeping the 8th seat allows the Blue seats to become safer. This map also sees a big reorientation of the three GOP seats to satisfy the democratic mappers. This map probably has 4 safe blue seats.



The theme of any MN Blue gerrymander is pairing each of the twin cities with as much exurbs as one can without making it vulnerable.

Huge dummymander risk, dems still over-perform in rural mn down-ballot, these maps evaporate that remaining support.  Dems would be wise to draw a 4d-3r map, with 2 of the r districts being rural districts that dems have been able to win in the past decade.  Dems would be smart to give Phillips some of Minneapolis and Craig some of Stp to shore them up, but a visually wird gerrymander into rural mn would garner huge backlash, and risks dummymander in a state which has trended r.  

https://davesredistricting.org/join/ee1bb222-5386-4292-97cd-f56cf4ece4c5
here's a more likely MN map.  I wouldn't support this, but all 4 dem seats have double digit Clinton margins and only 1 seat would've stayed red the entire last decade.  If dems run candidates more appealing to rural voters, they could win 6/7 of the seats.  

No, the rurals are turning red. Peterson is retiring in 2022 or losing in 2020, so he's gone. Klobuchar was the only one who could keep the old rurals, but even in 2018 her victory map was extremely urban. Dems don't hold any legislative seats outside the 5 blue seats under the aggressive plan, and the second plan only strands the Fargo legislators. The 'almost' victories in the 1st and 8th in 2018 were fought on urban-rural lines, and every plan takes the blue urban areas and ushers them away to safety. No district relies on any rural area going blue, every one has a majority of the voters being democrats in Suburbs or scattered cities like Duluth or Rochester.

I think I already explained why Dems won't be cutting towns, but if they do then tons of different options open up.

You act as if present trends are set in stone.  Until 2018 Republican held a light blue Minneapolis area seat and dems held 2 other rural seats besides Peterson.  If Dems run more socially moderate/conservative but economically populist candidates  they could maybe win rural seats.  Probably not, but it's possible.  Also after Trump Republicans could come back in the Twin cities, if they do that and hold the rural areas, MN is a red state.  Your map makes NC's old districts look pretty and it is too aggressive, it would be like Texas Republicans trying to keep only 2 Dem seats in DFW in 2022, bad idea.  MN dems would be wise to instead draw a clean bincumbent protection map that gives Phillips a safe seat and Craig a likely D seat.   The math might be there to draw a 5D-2R map, but it's not feasible without drawing an ugly map which would upset.  The political geography is bad for Dems in MN.

[Idaho Conservative]

Minnesota seems like the kind of state where Democrats might go for a light-to-medium gerrymander, like Indiana or Wisconsin last time. In practice that probably means the 7th gets cut up between the 6th and 8th and everybody else gets shored up.

That probably means a great northern district--if Peterson holds on he'd have better odds with Duluth and the Iron Range. It'd probably still be likely R but probably more favorable than either district is currently.

Of course, this is all assuming that Minnesota loses a seat...

realistically, they'll draw something like this.  It's not the best dems could do, but without cracking the twin cities or drawing weird districts, this is a pretty solid 4-3 map.
https://davesredistricting.org/join/bf2b2217-b59d-49e3-9cb7-a0ff2c1a28ed